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About the Author
John Piper (born 1946) served for thirty-three years as pastor for preaching and vision at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and is the founder and lead teacher of Desiring God, whose ministry motto is “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” His many books include Desiring God, Don’t Waste Your Life, Future Grace, Counted Righteous in Christ, and When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy, from whose final chapter this small book grew. The original book’s Contents page lists a closing “Note on Resources” (p. 80) directing readers to Desiring God, where Piper’s sermons, articles and books are made freely available.
Writers and Works the Book Draws Upon
Piper repeatedly commends the “old books” of Bible-saturated physicians of the soul, and the study companion has followed him in quoting the public-domain writers among them. The book’s own notes point readers to: Willem Teellinck, The Path of True Godliness; Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed (1630); William Bridge, A Lifting Up for the Downcast (1649); Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment (1648); John Owen, Overcoming Sin and Temptation and Communion with God (1657); Richard Baxter, “The Cure of Melancholy and Overmuch Sorrow by Faith and Physic” (in Puritan Sermons 1659–1689, vol. 3); Walter Marshall, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification (1692); Henry Scougal, The Life of God in the Soul of Man (1739); Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections (1746); Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cures (1965); Gaius Davies, Genius, Grief and Grace (2001); and J. I. Packer, Faithfulness and Holiness: The Witness of J. C. Ryle (2002).
Other sources cited in the chapters include John Bunyan’s Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners; John Brown’s biography of Bunyan; the Westminster Confession of Faith (11.1–2); Donald S. Whitney, How Can I Be Sure I’m a Christian?; David Powlison, “Biological Psychiatry” and Power Encounters; Edward T. Welch, Blame It on the Brain? and his articles on counseling the depressed; C. S. Lewis (ed.), George MacDonald: An Anthology; Will Metzger, Tell the Truth; J. Campbell White in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement; Gilbert Thomas, William Cowper and the Eighteenth Century; and Piper’s own The Hidden Smile of God and The Roots of Endurance, which tell the Cowper–Newton story more fully.
About This Web Edition
When the Darkness Will Not Lift: Doing What We Can While We Wait for God—and Joy is copyright © 2006 by Desiring God Foundation and published by Crossway Books. The full text is not reproduced here. This UECF.NET web book is a chapter-by-chapter study companion: it preserves the book’s complete structure—every chapter and sub-heading in order—summarizes the teaching in fresh wording, and quotes Scripture (ESV) together with the public-domain hymns, poems and Puritan writers the author himself cites. Brief phrases from the book are quoted only where needed to identify a heading or key term.
To read the book itself, use the PDF linked on the Contents page or visit Desiring God, which makes John Piper’s books freely available for reading and download. Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.